Name: Virginia Granger Potato Bread
Ingredients: 2 medium potatoes; 1 teaspoon pearl ash; 2 cups rye meal or flour; 2 tablespoons butter or lard (optional)

Why it works: Potato and rye work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Virginia Granger Potato Bread

Ingredients

2 medium potatoes
1 teaspoon pearl ash
2 cups rye meal or flour
2 tablespoons butter or lard (optional)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Boil the potatoes until just tender, then dry them briefly on the fire.
Peel the hot potatoes and mash them as finely as possible.
Mix the pearl ash with new yeast and add to the mashed potatoes.
Incorporate the rye meal or flour until well combined; do not add water.
Let the dough rest for 1.5 to 2 hours before baking.
Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until done, which will take less time than regular wheat bread.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Potato + ryetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rye + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together348 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).